Mean Girls

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Not suitable under 10; parental guidance to 14 (adult themes, sexual references, coarse language)

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This topic contains:

  • overall comments and recommendations
  • details of classification and consumer advice lines for Mean Girls
  • a review of Mean Girls completed by the Australian Council on Children and the Media (ACCM) on 14 July 2004.

Overall comments and recommendations

Children under 10 Not suitable due to adult themes, sexual references, and coarse language.
Children aged 10–14 Parental guidance recommended due to adult themes, sexual references, and coarse language.
Children aged 15 and over Ok for this age group.

About the movie

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Australian Government Classification Board and the associated consumer advice lines. Other classification advice (OC) is provided where the Australian film classification is not available.

Name of movie: Mean Girls
Classification: M
Consumer advice lines: Mature themes
Length: 97 minutes

ACCM review

This review of the movie contains the following information:

A synopsis of the story

Cady Heron has led an exciting but sheltered life, being brought up and home schooled by her research scientist parents in Africa. That all changes, however, when, at the age of 16, the family move back to America and Cady goes to a public high school. She gets a major culture shock when she finds the school segregated into various groups such as the Asian Nerds, the Cool Asians, the Sexually Active Bambies and, high in the pecking order, the Plastics. This is a group of three girls, Regina, the queen bee, and her workers Gretchen and Karen, who are all in love with themselves.

The first person to befriend Cady is gothic Janis, reputed to be a lesbian, who lets Cady in on the social hierarchy at the school. Janis used to be best friends with Regina in Middle School but they fell out and are now enemies. When Regina decides to invite Cady into the Plastics, which is such an honour, Janis sees this as a way to sabotage the group. Together with friend Damien, who’s gay, Janis and Cady devise ways to bring down the Plastics.

Unfortunately, things start to go awry when Cady, having infiltrated the group, becomes as ‘plastic’ as the others. Things start to get complicated when Cady starts to like Aaron, an ex-boyfriend of Regina’s and Regina can’t let that happen. However, things take a definite turn for the worse when Regina gives her poison pen diary to the Principal and accuses Cady of writing it.

Themesinfo

Children and adolescents may react adversely at different ages to themes of crime, suicide, drug and alcohol dependence, death, serious illness, family breakdown, death or separation from a parent, animal distress or cruelty to animals, children as victims, natural disasters and racism. Occasionally reviews may also signal themes that some parents may simply wish to know about.

Stereotypes; High School; Bullying.

Use of violenceinfo

Research shows that children are at risk of learning that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution when violence is glamourised, performed by an attractive hero, successful, has few real life consequences, is set in a comic context and / or is mostly perpetrated by male characters with female victims, or by one race against another.

Repeated exposure to violent content can reinforce the message that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution. Repeated exposure also increases the risks that children will become desensitised to the use of violence in real life or develop an exaggerated view about the prevalence and likelihood of violence in their own world.

There is some violence in this movie:

  • There is a lot of verbal abuse and insults thrown around.
  • In her imagination, Cady leaps onto Regina and attacks her viciously.
  • The exposure of Regina’s diary causes two girls to start fighting, which escalates into a huge group fight.
  • Regina is hit by a bus (not shown) and left with spinal injuries.
  • Three other girls are shown to be hit by a bus – but aren’t really.
  • Regina takes up hockey and sets out on the hockey field attacking everyone in her way with her stick.

Material that may scare or disturb children

Under fiveinfo

Children under five are most likely to be frightened by scary visual images, such as monsters, physical transformations.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children under the age of five, including the following:

  • There’s nothing particularly scary in this movie, although the behaviour of the ‘mean girls’ could be quite disturbing to some children.

Aged five to eightinfo

Children aged five to eight will also be frightened by scary visual images and will also be disturbed by depictions of the death of a parent, a child abandoned or separated from parents, children or animals being hurt or threatened and / or natural disasters.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes and scary visual images, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children aged five to eight, including the following:

  • There’s nothing particularly scary in this movie, although the behaviour of the ‘mean girls’ could be quite disturbing to some children.

Aged eight to thirteeninfo

Children aged eight to thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic threats and dangers, violence or threat of violence and / or stories in which children are hurt or threatened.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children aged eight to thirteen, including the following:

  • There’s nothing particularly scary in this movie, although the behaviour of the ‘mean girls’ could be quite disturbing to some children.

Thirteen and overinfo

Children over the age of thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic physical harm or threats, molestation or sexual assault and / or threats from aliens or the occult.

  • Nothing further noted.

Product placement

The following products are displayed or used in this movie:

  • Coke.

Sexual references

There are a lot of sexual references:

  • Janis is referred to as a dyke.
  • During Sex Education the teacher tells them that if they have sex they will get pregnant and die, and that if they touch each other they will get Chlamydia and die.
  • The teacher hands out condoms to the class.
  • Cady gets asked if she wants to have sex with Jason.
  • A dog chews on Regina’s mother’s breast.
  • Regina says she was ‘half a virgin’ when she met Aaron.
  • Regina’s mother enters her bedroom with drinks but finds Regina making out with a boy on her bed, so offers them a condom instead.
  • A teacher has an affair with a student.
  • A couple in the projection room apparently have sex (not actually shown).
  • One of the female students says that she has to use jumbo tampons because she has a wide set vagina and that doesn’t mean she’s not a virgin.
  • There’s also a lot of name calling of sluts, whores and fat virgin.

Nudity and sexual activity

There is some nudity and sexual activity in this movie, including:

  • There is no nudity but the teacher takes her top off when Cady spills her coffee over her and she accidentally removes her t-shirt with her jumper leaving her in just a bra.
  • Sexual activity is restricted to heavy kissing, including kissing by two girls.

Use of substances

There are some references to alcohol and other drugs in this movie:

  • There is use of alcohol at a party and Cady vomits after drinking too much.
  • Janis is accused of being on crack.
  • Cady’s teacher Sharon Norberry admits to pushing herself and that she wants to push Cady to do better. This is translated into the diary as Ms. Norberry’s being a drug pusher.

Coarse language

There is some coarse language in this movie, including:

  • Frequent use of the words bitch, slut, and whore.
  • There is occasional use of the following:
    • Oh my God
    • Arse
    • Pissed off.

In a nutshell

Mean Girls is a teenage comedy based on the nonfiction book, Queen Bees and Wannabes, by Rosalind Wiseman. The film highlights stereotypical, high school social cliques and the ramifications of dishonesty and bullying. Due to the adult themes, sexual references, and coarse language, this film is best suited to ages 15 and up, with parental guidance for ages 10 to 14.

The take home message from the movie is that young people shouldn’t be afraid to be themselves.

Values parents may wish to encourage include:

  • self reflection
  • not to follow blindly
  • it’s okay to be smart.

Values parents may wish to discourage include:

  • name calling
  • bitchiness
  • vindictiveness
  • bullying and harassment
  • irresponsible behaviour.